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KW 3: Words and Warm Milk |
| And my flesh is become word, and dwells among them. For whereas I once had a head full of thoughts, I now have, in its place, a threadbare and holey burlap sack swarming inside and out with massless, tickling word-butterflies and word-moths, fluttering and grazing and alighting on me like stray eyelashes before flitting away to land elsewhere or not at all. And come the Morphos (morphemes) on their iridescent blue wings, and come the Polyphemus (phonemes) with their lidless purplish eyespots. But the caterpillar graphemes cling to surfaces, as graphemes must, wriggling willy-nilly between Latin and Cyrillic shapes before my bleary eyes. And when I turn away from the creation of my secret language to study once again from the Testament, my head is a shivering carpet of golden Monarchs on a hollow skull, unfurling their wings like the ornaments of a coronet. And then a boat drops me off at the island with my head like a bag of moths or a carpet of Monarchs and I must spend a couple of hours paying great attention to more words and choose mine carefully, and adding more to the list of words to be translated into my secret language, and practicing the ones I’ve already translated in sotto voce. In other words, I’ve been spending a lot of time with words. I can hardly speak English anymore. One of Don Miguel Ruiz’s so-called Four Agreements is to be “impeccable with your word.” Which sounds like he means that you should hold to your promises, but when you retrace the definitions he lays out for “impeccable” “sin” and “word”, you realize that what he is really saying is that one should never speak or act against oneself. The duty to be true. Why did I even write the previous paragraph? I don’t know. What I do know is that Jonathan smokes his weed, and spices his blood with it, and passes it along to me venously. I’ll have to remember to encourage that. Helps expand the mind, broaden perception. Helps tease apart the skeins of words. Was I declared a priest in Elysium? I don’t remember. Was I ever not a priest? Did I not baptize myself in Chesapeake Bay or was that my anointing? I’m hungry. Josephine said Duty is a cold, constant mistress, but I know a hot one, just as constant. Hunger, you fitful sleeper, you insomniac bedfellow. You keep me awake with your restlessness but I forgive you every time. Didn’t I just go to Ecclesia and find you some warm milk? Didn’t I feed you your warm milk not an hour ago? Yet you complain so soon? Was it not enough? Not young enough? Not old enough? Too pickled, too bland? Lacking estrogen, lacking iron? Do you want it swarthy, want it sweet, want it smoked with nicotine? Will you always be so picky, so demanding? It’s alright. I understand. We do like our warm milk. |
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KW 2: Cast Away |
| Her house is large enough that rather than pace around in it when you have a lot on your mind, you can take walks, lengthy walks that wind and climb and descend again, hardly ever doubling back over a trail you’ve already blazed. And like any proper nature hike, there are inviting forks and high roads and low roads and narrow paths that open unexpectedly into glades and a canopy that sometimes soars four stories high above you, a crystal chandelier sparkling above like white sun rays through a screen of foliage. And outside there are the chirps and squeaks and hoots of impossible animals hidden in the garden, which itself is impossible. And every so often a lurking ghoul checking on me, or standing silently in front of doors I’m probably not permitted to enter. There’s no question that the Embrace has wiped away most of my former personality, completing a wipe begun by the ghouling. I don’t behave like I once did; I don’t speak like I once did; I don’t react to certain subjects like I once did. While the new identity I’m trying to form is undoubtedly more suited to this life than the old one I had, I can’t help but wonder whether the Embrace has broken me in some irrevocable way. Except in a few instances, I don’t feel as much as I did before, not as intensely or as richly. I still feel as though my body is a thick glove I wear, well articulated and under my complete control, but insulating me from my environment, physically and psychologically. Psychologically, because even my eyes feel like a false extension, relaying images from outer space to where I sit inside my capsule. Carcosa, the secret Carcosa I know now, is a slow, stately pageant of beautiful women who murmur and caress and promise and play with my hand, and it’s all very nice, but my enthusiasm, which used to be meteoric, is now more like a tide, pooling up almost imperceptibly, then ebbing out again before I bother to harness it, and long after Madame has given up. Who am I kidding? Emily still has her hooks in me. They found purchase in me when I was the most vulnerable, the most lost and needy, and her talons are as sharp as they are shapely, and they don’t retract. Struggle and the barbs sink deeper. Thanks to the blood again, which we shared and slithered in, and which fooled some stupid part of me into thinking we were united in some way, both witting hostages to the same situation, both drinking from the same well. So it’s a blessing that my body is partially numb. It’s better now than when I drew breath, when it was impossible to close my eyes without seeing either Zack’s face or hers. Besides, now it is James Mazon’s face I see when I close my eyes. I see him slick with brine, wild in the face, shouting and clawing at the ocean to take him away. We may as well have been on the ledge of a building high above the street, he the jumper, I the rescuer. For a moment we held each other, and I thought then that I had broken through, that he could finally hear my voice, oozing out to him with all the blood-fueled charisma I could muster, inviting him to crouch down beneath the surface for the span of one held breath, and sit there, letting the bay take his horrible guilt and his misplaced and maladjusted compassion. But Tusk came and did his Lord eyes, and took him away to his death, which seemed to be what everyone, including James, wanted. So I was left there, waist-deep in the bitter surf, and I faced the bay, the lights of Hawthorn Point beading on the horizon like rain on a neon rod, and the waves rocked the buoys and swelled past me, threatening to lift me off the sand, and I curled up beneath them at their coaxing, down to where the only sound is a timeless muffled roar and burble, the music of the spheres, and darkness without end, and the body is buffeted by invisible currents, and one listens, and one gives something to the ocean, something one isn’t ready to give, but gives anyway, and when one stands again, the world is new and unformed, still dripping with primordial mist, every shape a volcanic thing thrust up from the Earth’s black bowels, never seen before. And I came ashore. |
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KW 1: Mustang |
| “You’re in shock,” Bishop said. He named it. That’s what I’m in: shock. And—in keeping with the theory that all things have meaning, or, rather, that nothing has no meaning—I shouldn’t ignore the fact that shock, as a pathological phenomenon, is related to the circulatory function, to blood loss, to a weak pulse, low blood pressure. Everything is about blood now, isn’t it? Its circulation from someone to me to someone else. Its loss, its pressure. The pressure of the blood. Evidence that I’m in shock: I’m not nearly as afraid as I should be. Wary, on guard, distrustful, yes. But frightened? Only vaguely. I’m frightened the way I was frightened that night along a desolate freeway in Pennsylvania when, during a long, uneventful drive, I decided on a whim to drift out of the left lane for the wide open inner lanes, and just as I eased the wheel towards the right and crossed over the first dotted white line, still in the midst of evening daydreams, a cement median came at me like an oncoming train in a narrow tunnel. I had enough time to see its reflectors flashing before it exploded past me a few feet to my left. For how long I had been driving on the shoulder of the freeway rather than the left lane, I’ll never know. What is certain is that, had I decided to change lanes even two seconds later, my van and I would have become one with the median at 70MPH, the three of us a new form of life that exists for a split second in some roadside Large Hadron Collider. One moment, my hands on the wheel, my foot on the pedal while I compose a forum post in my head for the cryptid hunters online, the next, I’m tinsel and confetti and sparkles of pulverized plastic and concrete, and a tire rim rolling on to carry the news of my transformation to momma. And the seconds ticked by as I drove in the real, honest-to-god left lane, the median rushing along beside me, and it was as though the shuttle had failed to launch but had failed to explode on the launching pad too, just sitting there in Cape Canaveral, waiting and full of fuel. I was aware that I had almost died, and that I wouldn’t have even known what hit me. Had I missed a sign? The mass of the van, and of me inside it, the inertia, the fragility of flesh, all of these things we ignore when we’re getting from A to B, they arose in my mind but stirred only the dimmest, most distant fear, because, what of it? What could be done? It was over and I was still there, flying over the asphalt. There was dinner to make and exams to grade and, in the meantime, a pedal to press, fuel to burn. I continued home That’s the kind of fear I feel: back-burner fear, fear I have no time for. More evidence I’m in shock: I have no identity. It’s what she wanted to know, wasn’t it? Who are you? What are you? I’m a blank slate. Zack wiped my identity once, and I was rebuilding it, finding stability, losing it to the blood madness he inflicted on me, beginning to rebuild it again when he died and took the vinculum with him, and now it’s gone once more, wiped by someone I don’t even know, someone I can barely remember even seeing before she claimed me. I’m not human, I’m not ghoul. I’m not citizen, I’m not servant. I’m not boy, I’m not man. I’m child to a mother unknown, brother to a brother unknown, conscript to an army unguessed and a war undreamed. I’m a Mustang, said Bishop. An enlisted soldier promoted to officer. I didn’t come from West Point or Annapolis. I worked my way up; I was elevated. Nevermind all that. I'll invent myself later. Foot on the pedal, hand on the wheel, drive on. |
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Fox 10: The Fox as Foster Mother |
| I lost all standing in the city and I lost recognition by the Prince and I slept near Reagan and she was a cannibal and they burned her at the stake and I watched the Chalk Row Regency disappear literally overnight and I told Gabriel I spied on him and I punched Connall because he asked me to and I let him punch me and it was a weak girl punch but I was drunk and I was looking up at the rectangle sky in the alley and there was more vodka inside me than I am tall and then it came out like a fountain and I was in a pool of vodka and I gave up my independence to be someone’s servant again and I got shot and beaten to pieces and spent I don’t know how many nights in syrupy-slow dreams of violence and gun shots and a hundred kine draining me and I woke up with Jo’s blood in my body and I drained my herd and my poor fragile Lenore and knit myself back together and I threw on a gown and mask and had Lenore do my hair and makeup and I drained her again and I danced with Gabriel at a ball and I smelled blood and I tried to sneak a bite on him and I was addicted and I lost my shit and freaked out and told Gabriel I hated him and he was useless and I got a fix from Jo and now I’m lying on Lenore’s bed, writing on this thing, and she’s beside me, pale as toilet bowl, her grey mouth is open, her breath is like rubbing terrycloth together as hard as you can, and it sounds like hush shhh hush shhh hush shhh hush shhh and she only moves her eyeballs because her skin hurts, and when you squeeze her hand, the fingernails stay white and you can hear her heart pattering quick and light as mice feet on linoleum and she’s sweaty and cool at the same time and when she says anything she’s confused and rambles and says Effie I’m hollow all hollow I’m dying. And there’s a half peeled orange I tried to feed her on the bed between us and a few stray peels here and there and the Kiss Me I’m Elvish mug is on its side between two dune swells of the comforter and the spilled water is dark like an oasis drying. But I don’t care. Because I have a childe. I have a real childe, a beautiful childe. She’s dark and strong and tall and her hair shines and she dances in a fighting way, and every feature is where it should be and nothing about her screams WRONG. I don’t have to wait until she gets over her Ugly or learns to live with it. And she’s mine. My baby. I earned her. She hated me at first, she was frightened, didn’t want to touch me, but she came around. I’m going to keep her until she’s all grown up. I’m going to teach her better than Connall could, better than Malenfant did, and she’ll love me and not want to leave even when it’s her time. And no one will take her away from me, not Connall, not Padma, not anybody. That bitch, Padma, thinks I’m not good enough to raise a Savage, thinks I want too much. Fuck that bitch. If she tries to steal Renata or teaches her even after I said she couldn’t, I’ll mail her to the cultists with a note to Usha saying BON APPETIT. And Connall. He could have thought before he acted for once in his Reck and then taken his lumps and realized he’d lost his baby and that was that, but he had to cop a tude. He had to bring out his baseball bat and look mean. Maybe if my herd wasn’t drained, and Lenore wasn’t a hollow clay doll sweaty and trembling and barely even making a dent on the bed beside me, I would have tried taking him, or just take the swing. And maybe he didn’t really want to kill me. Maybe he was just going to crack me once on the skull and call it even. But why should I take that risk? Why should I stand for that? When I actually have something to lose and he has nothing? Why should I let anyone act like they have a claim on her, even her sire, who went and lost her? She’s mine now, and no one’s taking her. Soon, Connall’s going to die, and then nobody can say she’s not truly mine. Maybe I should never make my own babies. Maybe I should just steal pretty ones every time. I want a Daeva, too. A little Daeva boy. They can be siblings. Lenore watches me writing. Poor, fragile Lenore, who worked so hard for me. I’m going to stay right here until dawn, and feed her, and help her use the bathroom. I owe her that much. hush shhh hush shhh hush shhh hush shhh |
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Fox 9: The Duty to Be a Complete Being |
| Note: I got some help organizing this and with grammar, but there are probably still mistakes. They are all my thoughts, though. The Duty to Being a Complete Being Context: As some of you know, I was born and grew up in an ecovillage. It still exists out there. It is not a utopia or a paradise. It is just a village my folks built exactly how they wanted it, and where they invited people or let people come and see what it was all about, and those who had something to add got respect, while those who were troublemakers or added nothing to the village went away. There were debates and fights and disagreements, but overall the village worked because of four reasons. One, we were regular people who had no qualms about friendship or family. Well, Kindred just have to deal with that part. But the second reason was that we had a powerful, passionate feeling that the village was roughly as important as our individual lives. Sure, you could feel it was not quite as important, and as long as you worked and didn’t cause more problems than you solved, that was OK. And you could feel it was even more important than your life, like my parents and some others did. But you had to agree at least mostly that the village WAS your life, because nobody gave it to you, you made it yourself. Even if you were new, once you believed in the village and gave to it, you were making it, and so it was yours, it was YOU. The third reason the village worked was that it was better than any other option. It was basically a reaction to everything my family didn’t like about normal cities, even what they didn’t like about other communes and hippy enclaves etc. Whenever it was not better, everyone pitched in to make it better again. And finally the fourth reason is that nobody there had to worry about eating or living. We had enough, usually we had plenty. When your stomach is growling and you’re not sure how you’re going to manage to pay rent this month, you don’t care about your community, you start caring only about you, and when everyone does that, the community gets worse, so your life gets worse, especially if you’re near the bottom of the totem pole to begin with. But when your food and shelter is secure, and nobody’s itching to kick you down the street in two days, you can focus on the community with a clear mind and with more of your time. Putting all these reasons together, you get a strong sense of unity, the kind that makes you want to work like hell to fix the village when it gets flooded up to the gables or burns down or something else. You want to save it because it’s your people, it’s your life, it’s better than any other place around, and you were safe there. Why wouldn’t you work like hell to keep a place like that going? In conclusion, that’s my background, and how I came up with my position and mission. I didn’t even mention my time in Charlotte, but I was so busy learning and surviving there that I hardly looked up to see how things really worked. Position and Mission I suppose you could say I have a Collectivist attitude about my Requiem. It’s not that I don’t have my own personal and private existence, it’s just that I know for a fact I can’t really live my life without a place safe and stable and free enough to live it in. So as you’ll see, my position and mission has a lot to do with how a society should or should not work. It is split up into five parts. 1. Status is not everything. • There, I said it. Status is not everything. But status is not nothing, either. Do-Nothings and serious troublemakers (I mean breach-makers and psycho killers) should be at the bottom of Kindred communities, because they’re nothing but leeches and breaches. If they don’t change their ways, they should be kicked out. But people who contribute, even if it’s just to study something quietly in their corner, something they can share with the group every once in a while, are not Do-Nothings. Artists and craftspeople are not Do-Nothings. If they refuse to pitch in occasionally or don’t help when there’s a crisis, then they are. On the other hand, people who don’t really help out, but who keep a good herd so we barely know they’re around, those people may not be very high up in status, but at least they’re not leeches. If they’re not draining from me and they’re not bothering me, they can be in their little mouse hole and why should that bother me or anyone else? • So who should be higher up? That’s simple. People who work for the collective, especially the ones who pitch in even when there’s no crisis, the ones who give their time just because. • And who should be higher than them? People who lead or organize the others. Who are these people? The ones who have the skill and/or the experience, and also the willingness to serve the others by sacrificing more of their time and energy into the community. • And that’s it. Status shouldn’t be the end-all. It’s just the result of dedication and effort. Not everyone is going to want the higher status because it means more responsibility, and the payback isn’t extreme. Those who don’t want the higher status shouldn’t be mocked or bullied or humiliated for it. • Mission: Recognize people’s efforts and reward them with respect, but never treat status like a religion. Never lord my status over people. Defend or guide people who run into status problems and see if they can’t be saved. Kick out leeches and breaches if they can’t be turned. 2. Strangers, nomads, and the Unaligned are not scum. • A stranger is someone you don’t know. So learn who they are before you judge them. Nomads are people who had trouble finding a place to stay, or didn’t want one. Maybe they never stuck around anywhere because other cities made them unhappy. Maybe they could stick with us. Many Unaligned are young. Being young shouldn’t be a crime. Being unsure or confused shouldn’t be a crime. Even being aloof or individualistic shouldn’t be a crime. Maybe the Unaligned can’t be trusted all the way, but who can? And if you can deal with a kindred who has ideas completely the opposite of yours, then you can deal with an Unaligned who has different ideas than both of you. Strangers, nomads, and the Unaligned are potential allies. • Mission: Make a real effort to welcome and include newcomers and give them a chance. Keep an eye on them, but let them prove they are worth something. In time, they’ll show what they really are. 3. It’s not just up to other people to watch what they say and not rile up your Beast, it’s also up to you to keep your Beast in check and let insults slide. • Maybe it’s because I’m a haunt, and I’ve spent time both in the Big Below, where shocking and goading people is a common hobby, and Up Top Elysiums, where the same people who are horrified of being insulted sometimes are the ones dishing it out the most, but I have a thick skin for insults. Most folk are ready to flip out at the wrong tone of voice or a cuss word. Societies that obsess over insults are pretty much kiln-baked hierarchies, hard as rock, where nobody is free to experiment or speak freely or jostle things around, because everyone is afraid of slipping one measly rung on the ladder. • In societies with loose status based more on what you’ve done for the group or how well you keep the Secret and keep the kine healthy, insults shouldn’t be the thing that gets talked about every other night, like who insulted who and what they’re going to do about it, and who apologized, and all that. That’s all wasted energy. And either it’s just two Kindred who have different cultures and ways of being, or it’s two Kindred who don’t like each other and are needling at each other to get one up on them. None of that really matters in the grand scheme of things. • Instead of focusing on who’s insulting you, you should focus on what insults you, and what you can do to stop being so sensitive. Yes, that means whipping the Beast if you have to. The way I see it, if we magically increased everyone’s sensitivity to insults by ten times, we’d all rip each other to pieces. But if we lowered our sensitivity to insults, we’d get along better. So it’s not the “rude” people who are the bigger problem, it’s the sensitive people. Does that mean there should just be a rudeness free-for-all? Of course not. Someone who’s always rude and starting fights is a troublemaker, and I already talked about what to do with them. • Mission: Besides looking inside yourself and working to control your Beast, spend time around all kinds of regulars, observing and hanging with them. Watch how easily modern kine can joke and elbow each other and make jabs and cut-downs. Notice how friends and close associates do it more than strangers, almost as much as enemies, sometimes. Notice how they react. Study how and why modern kine DO get insulted. Imitate. 4. No useful kindred should have to pay to eat or have shelter. • I wish this one didn’t need much explanation. It’s a no-brainer, and I’ve never heard a good argument against it. There are not very many of us. We have the space, we have the resources. Whoever thinks Kindred should pay corvée or a tax or something just to exist is basically saying that they don’t care if Kindred die and they don’t care if a starving or homeless Kindred causes a breach. Taxes on top of regular city work is pretty much the main reason people go Unaligned or Anarch, and although Unaligned aren’t scum, the more of them running around alone and making babies, the higher the chance the Secret will be Out or the food will run out. • Let's not forget that Kindred don't have a choice about being homeless. It's not an option, not even for 12 hours. We can't just crash somewhere. If a regular loses her home, she has a bad year. If a kindred does, she dies. • There are so few of us. And so many of them, and their toys and tools are getting better and better at finding us. There are hunters and ghoul dogs and other critters. Let’s stop wasting time stomping on the little guy and making him scramble to serve lords, and start figuring out how to stay ten steps ahead of the regulars and the other critters. • Mission: Offer land and feeding grounds to all who will chip in. Move them around or change things up to keep the resources even and healthy, but if you’re going to make someone pay to exist, you might as well exile them, so just do THAT if it comes down to it. Freedom or exile. No exploitation. This is an example of a mission where we DON’T imitate most regulars, because they are terrible at this. 5. Existence is more than just survival. • Art is not bad. Reading is not bad. Music is not bad. Plays and poetry are not bad. Socializing, and I mean REAL socializing, not hen-pecking, is not bad. Enjoying the night and exploring the land and trying to feel something good and new are not bad things to do. What are we, just monsters? Nothing else? Is every night for the rest of our existence just about foraging and storing food and keeping out predators and beating our chests like animals? I hope not, because if it is, I’m going to go get a nice tan, thank you very much. • So I’m not some dazzling culture maven, but I know one thing. I know that civilizations are judged not so much by how they built themselves but by what they did with their time when they weren’t trying to put food in their mouths or a roof over their heads or clothes on their backs. All the stuff that “isn’t necessary” is the stuff that keeps us from wanting to cut off our own heads. You don’t build an ecovillage just to have one, or to see whether you can make more energy than you use. You do it so you can have a better life with enough time to put on plays and have dances and readings and sculpt and fence and hike. Or to study and learn and explore. • Ever notice how the Kindred who say art and culture are worthless are usually the ones with palaces full of the stuff, and brains full of history and philosophy? Ever notice how they're usually the ones who care about what people are wearing and how to "orate", and make fun of uneducated people? They love that that stuff exists, but they look down on whoever wants to dedicate their life to encouraging or making it. • Mission: Again, look to regulars and imitate. When the going gets tough, they cut back on art and play and pure studying, but they don’t cut it back all the way. Might as well work in a mine all night and drink your juice from a tube. Encourage the artists and intellectuals to help make existence enjoyable even while they chip in to keep the Secret and the land stable. This has been my thoughts on the duty to be a complete being. Thank you for reading. Euphemie Amy Latchford, childe of Malenfant, personal assistant to the Dame Victoria. |
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Fox 8: Dame’s Second Letter |
| Miss Euphemie: Precious few nights have elapsed since I last wrote, my cherished and erstwhile apprentice, and let it be marked that there are only a handful of creatures crawling on earth--or slinking in the twilit and shadowy interstices--to whom I will send letters in such short intervals. The epistolary form is one that demands time and care beyond that necessitated by the crude physical act of translating from brain, to hand, to paper; a proper letter engages the intellect, the spirit, and, in the case of extraordinarily heart-felt or intimate exchanges, the soul. For a weary Dame such as myself, ceaselessly harried by and invested in the internecine campaigns of the Charlotte Court, the leisure to write with full psychic involvement is in short supply. For you, however, I make the time. This correspondence probably finds you before you have had a chance to write me back. Forgive me; I do not wish, by any means, to seem impatient, but I believe you would appreciate the following message as soon as possible in order to make preparations. First, do not permit anyone to read this letter. If someone is looking over your shoulder, deny them the letter and read the rest when you are alone. Now, then. I will be traveling to Norfolk, Virginia soon. It has no Kindred presence to speak of, but others reside there whose acquaintance I value and must maintain. Since I will be so near, I propose we meet halfway, in Yorktown, which is just south of the Geo P. Coleman Memorial Bridge, north of Carcosa International Airport, and which may or may not be considered Carcosa territory by your monarch; my presence in that suburb must, therefore, be kept secret. I trust you understand the gravity of the situation. I would have you meet me in Norfolk, but I would prefer my acquaintances there to believe me returned home while I am meeting with you. Let us meet Friday, the second day of October. We can spend the weekend together as in nights gone by, “catching up”, as people now say, and seeing how much ignorance I can slap off of you, and how many stubborn bits of manure and farm sod can be scraped from your stunted, rogue frame before the Monday aurora. I will contact you by phone and transmit the location of our rendezvous on Friday, assuming I receive no special concerns or reservations from you before then. With some luck, I will see you soon. Destroy this letter, won’t you? Fond Regards, The Dame Victoria  |
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Fox 7: Dame’s First letter |
| Miss Euphemie: My dear girl and erstwhile apprentice, I urge you not to regard my tardiness in replying to your first letter as anything but a symptom of the befuddlement that ceaseless politicking and posturing exact on the mind of an old Gal who has gone on too long without the bitter-sweet respite of Eclipse. Believe me when I say I was pleased to receive your correspondence, colored as it was by your unmistakable—if occasionally off-putting—vernacular and idiosyncrasies, and that in the future I will not be so dilatory with my response. You mention a number of alarming things that need be addressed without delay. First, do not ever, under any circumstance, “sneak” on the Prince, especially if she even remotely deserves the title. Whoever asked you to do this sent you on a fool’s errand, and probably hoped your skullduggery would be discovered and promptly punished. That you escaped immediate retribution that time only reinforces the possibility that this Josephine, vain creature that she seems to be, only troubles herself when transgressions against her authority are public. But do not misunderstand me: there is nothing contemptible about vanity. Its detractors point it out among the weak, failing to recognize that it is ubiquitous among the mighty. Only the vast, middling wastes are parched of vanity, populated as they are by people just bright enough to survive without it, but too dim to wield it to their own benefit. You, my Euphemie, have your own reservoir of vanity that is more apparent to people than you think it is; thus, kindly desist from disparaging so-called “prissies.” How many souls believed me to be a “prissy” before the scythe of my wrath swung low for them like a sweet chariot for to carry them home? Why, only last week, Gibbering Gibson thought he could lead me by the powdered nose, and for his troubles, I had to spite his face. A propos, need you be reminded that criticisms, protests, and advice should be given in private unless one knows exactly what one is doing, and you, my little Farm Girl, do not? This goes double for the vain and mighty, and triple for Princes. Beaten by the hound? Begging to be spared? You are industrious in your efforts to become the whipping girl of Carcosa. Was my whipping insufficient? Have you acquired a deviant fondness for the bite of the switch on your back? I could lash you to a red froth when we next meet, but I fear that will only develop your fetishization for punishment further. It does not surprise me that you are experiencing a period of adjustment in an Invictus and Daeva dominated city, nor that you have lapsed back into the vulgar mannerisms and quaint notions of farm politics that are your safety blanket, but at the rate you are going, there is innovative torture in your forecast, with a chance of execution. And no, there is no double jeopardy clause in Carcosa law; of that, I am certain. Stop giving them reasons to flay you. If a flaying is what you really want, do allow me. I confess, the hints you give me of your fledgling Movement are exciting. How dynamic and envigorating the trials of an Experiment in the embryonic stages, how delicate! Reading your last letter had me reeling with nostalgia for my younger days, when the night was a blank page of carbon paper upon which to etch a structure from basic, pure ideals! Now, concerning this man you call Warrel, have him expulsed from the group at once. One who sells his covenant-mate down the river, especially in such a small group, will only bring ruin. The others you should cleave to closely, and mind what is said about them and done against them, for every ill word or deed you can answer with your own will tip the scales back in your favor, putting you eventually on a more even level with those who assuredly consider you to be a buffoon and, worse, a burden, for your past actions. But here comes Raj, telling me that I am needed for negotiations, so, with regret, I will end my letter with some quick composition tips. First, “could of” is never, I repeat, never appropriate; only hobos and minorities write in this fashion. The same holds true for “would have”, “should have”, and other modal constructions, and your speech must reflect this rule. Second, you are not permitted to write in unstylistic fragments. I have enclosed a small manual on writing style, one that is long out of print, but possesses a firm, unrepentant and anti-relativist stance grown scarce in this era. Please mind the sections of common errors produced by the uneducated, and the chapter on fragments. Do try to stay out of trouble, Miss Euphemie, and I will write soon to speak of lessons. Fond Regards, The Dame Victoria |
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Fox 6: Would Of, Should Of |
 Dear Mistress Dame Victoria, I know you must be real busy which is why you haven’t had time to write back. That’s OK, I don’t mind. If its OK with you I’m just going to write to you every so often because if I don’t write to someone, I get lazy about it, and then I don’t write anything at all, and I get a little nutso. Also writing to you tonight is a good way to stall from having to write to Blaine Walker, this guy who gives me the creeps. But even if I wasn’t putting off writing to creepy Vickies, I still would be writing to you tonight because I miss you. I bet you hate that I just said I miss you, but your not here to yell at me. Which is too bad, because I could of used your yelling. Could of? Could have? I can’t remember when you can write OF and when your supposed to write HAVE. I forgot your writing and speaking tips in Charlotte when I made my getaway. Sorry. It’s been forty-six nights since I last wrote. I lot has happened. I questioned the Prince so I got my rear broken by the hound. Who is her son. I almost bit off his arm, though, so we’re even. So then you’d think getting my ribcage splintered like a wood crate by that dung-bag would teach me to try and discuss stuff with Josephine (the Prince) but it didn’t. I did it again, later, and did something even worse. I may have been sipping the red juice for a few years, but I still have the village in me. I don’t know much else. I still act like the world is one big council, one big lodge meeting, and when the north farm is flooded or some people want to expand the lake and some don’t, people put their noggins together and figure out what to do, and people listen to the ones who get stuff done the most, but those people listen to the others, too. This dictator shit won’t get through my beaten-earth skull. And, yeah, I know what I am, I know what’s in me. I know if I had the power, real power, I’d keep it. Not going to lie about it. Like I told Warrel, all the more reason to keep that dictator stuff in check. So what did I do wrong? Prince told Elysium she wanted this one Carthian dead, some guy I barely ever saw, and she wanted one of us to kill him, and none of us could warn him or tell anyone. This guy Lucas volunteered to be the killer, but then as soon as Prince left, he told me he wasn’t even going to kill him. Which made no kind of sense to me and pissed me off, because why take the job, then? He said he was trying to give the kid a week to escape, but I think Lucas didn’t know what the hell he was doing anymore than I did when I decided to tell Warrel what was going on. There are three things in my life I wish I could take back. Two of them, you already know. The last one is telling Warrel like I did. Not only was it a stupid and useless thing to do, because that kid was going to die no matter what, but I judged Warrel all wrong. I thought he would want to at least be told, to not be surprised, so he would know he could trust me, that I was brave and loyal to Carthians and not to some redhead who thinks she’s Shiva, and we would just talk about it like comrades, just wait it out and stick together for a little while until we were both sure we weren’t next on her list. But no. He went right to her and tattled. I keep see-sawing on whether he saved my life or almost got my killed. He made it sound like he begged for me, but I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit. Nowadays I think he should of shut the fuck up, and I should of shut the fuck up, and he seems to think so too. We’re cool now, and I’m glad he didn’t go to the Vickies like he was going to do. But then I think about kneeling in front of Josephine, 100% sure I was going to die, and if he had just kept the secret between us I wouldn’t be there, and I wouldn’t be one of the most hated people in the city like I am, now. Oh well. I’m still here. Somebody else bit the dust instead of me. I don’t really want to talk about that part, but let’s just say I’m starting to think there may actually be a god or goddess or something. Or maybe you reached out with some magic and saved me. Did you, Mistress? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Since then, a couple new Carthians came to town, so the four of us are pretty tight. We have to be, because the Vickies are pushing us. Warrel I already sort of told you about. Reagan, I like a lot. She seems very sad, and you know I don’t know crap about dealing with sad people, and I usually just make them feel even worse, but I still like being around her more than anyone else, and I’m going to try hard not to make her feel worse. Then again, maybe she’s not even sad, just shy, and I’m talking nonsense. Harman Scofield is basically our Prefect now. I don’t know what to think about him. Sometimes I’m so glad he’s with us, and sometimes he makes me so pissed I want to sock him in his scowly, sighy mouth. Apparently, he feels even more that way about me because I’m pretty sure I rile his Beast up just from speaking up. He cares more about how people say stuff than what they say, and before we let him be our leader, his number one skill seemed to be complaining about other people’s ideas. But then he talked to the Prince in a way I could never manage, he and Reagan did, and I knew we needed him, especially now. Still, like Reagan said, I don’t need to be his friend, and that’s the way we both prefer it, I think. Just recently we had a plan to get some influence in a territory here and Prince came down on us like an anvil on an I-beam. Warrel and Scofield don’t seem to agree on whether we gained much. I don’t know. We can’t just let them keep us down forever. There are four of us, and we’re organized, and we’ll get more members, no doubt about it. Shouldn’t that count for something? Shouldn’t she work with us to keep the city under control? But of course she wants the rack for her son. I feel funny only talking about myself, but it’s been so long without word from you, I don’t even know what would be going on there to ask anything about Charlotte. I still hope we can meet and do a lesson whenever you want to. I’ll go there, you don’t have to travel. I’m not afraid of the trip. I’m safer out there than Elysium, that’s for sure. Nobody sentenced me to death on the freeway from Ashville. Love, Farm Girl |
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Fox 5: Brute Girl |
| Dogs, she said. Four or so. Whatever they were, they were big and had teeth bigger than they were. I didn’t expect them to be so close to shore, thought we’d get a chance to walk around and size the place up for a while, maybe see how many there were, but I guess the boat made too much noise. So here comes this puppy out of the tree-line, and I take the shot, because, well, there’s some dogs from hell on this island and I came here to shoot them. What’s the difference between a small dog from hell and a big one? Difference is, the small one grows up to be the big one. Or maybe that’s not how hell dogs work? While the shot was still ringing out, I heard a voice in my head giving me advice it should have given me before I pulled the trigger, but it was too late for all that. Pooches were all over me, and I would have been a goner if not for a few good hits from Papa’s rifle. Reggie and the other guys helped too, I guess. The pooches low-tailed it back to the woods, and though I got one hell of a shot off on one of them, a real gut-grinder shot, they all got away from us, even the pup. It’s hard to be pissed about that, though, when your leg wants to fall off and your intestine is sort of peeking out going, “Howdy, how’s the weather?” I stitched myself up partway now, but its just surface stitching. Inside, there’s pieces missing, and stuff is rubbing against other stuff that shouldn’t be. It fucking hurts and it’s hard to think past it. I probably shouldn’t have gone to Elysium, because I’m bad enough when I’m in one piece, but I wanted to find Jo. But there’s this new guy, some gigantic dude named Alexei with a busted nose, and standing around him felt funny, like the air was too heavy, and I felt like the pooch-shoot was a CATASTROPHY instead of just a setback, and hunting wouldn’t go well this week, and everything was gone to hell, but it turns out Alexei’s just a Noss? As soon as he left, I felt better, like I could breathe easier (which is dumb, because, you know). Shit. That’s how people must feel about my face: much better when it’s gone. That makes me laugh. Ha Ha Ha! Then I pissed off this new Carthy, Terrell. Woops! Looking back, I came on a little strong. I don’t have my shtick down right, yet. It’s not easy without Dame looming around telling me what to say and how to say it. But still, sensitive, are we? He told me not to threaten him, like, four times. Alright, pal, I get it. We shook hands and stuff, didn’t we? Relax! And he got on me about organized meetings, and how much they’re fascist? Even though I didn’t say anything about an organized meeting? Just a meeting! Like, we hang out and talk! I mean, the last time I met with Warrel, we just lay on the grass and had a chat. Nothing fancy there. I really really REALLY hope Terrell isn’t one of these guys who remembers every little thing you said that made him upset, and spends an hour talking about how it made him upset every chance he gets. If so, I’m screwed, because I’m always saying stuff that upsets people, and I know it, and half the time I didn’t mean it that way anyway, and the other half of the time it isn’t important what I said or meant, so let’s drop it and just move on to something else, OK? I have a big, ugly mouth! I don’t even listen to half of what I say, why should you? I can’t wait to get all us Carthies together in one room. It’ll be a hoot, no matter what. Honestly, I’m pleased. With Carcosa, in general. It’s a huge garbage heap full of monsters, but so was Charlotte, and I got used to that. I was so nervous coming here. So far, I haven’t been banned from Elysium or from the whole fucking city, and for me that’s really something! And it’s exciting to have so few of us in such a small pond. You make a little motion, and you splash the guy next to you. And they splash you back, quick as a fly. Charlotte felt like a swamp, slow and sluggish and so far to sink, and it felt like if you tried to leave, you’d lose your boots in the sucking mud and fall on your face. Somehow, I got out. I’m pretty sure most people think I’m some brute girl, now, cracking skulls and stuff like that. It’s funny because I haven’t even touched anyone. (Okay, I punched at Reggie, but he liked it, and he deserves it for pretending I’m a dog.) I think maybe I just like making Adrian think I’ll take his job, soon. Time to call Warrel, tell him I might have scared off the new Carth on the block! That guy is so laid-back and steady choo-choo train, I bet if I told him I accidentally burnt down Elysium, he’d just say, “Well, Fanny, start rebuilding it, and call me if it looks like maybe you’ll burn it down again.” Then he’d make a joke about rutting some Daeva and disappear like he always does. |
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Fox 4: I Was Told There Would Be No Prissy Math |
| Dear Dame, I hope all goes well with you. You probably think I didn’t make it to Carcosa, with how long it’s taken me to write. Sorry about that. I’ve been real busy and I needed to write to myself a couple times before I wrote up something special for you. In some ways you’d be proud of me. I didn’t lurk around like you hate so much. Once I got a place to lay my head and put in some better locks and stuff, I went on the prowl to find one of our kind. It was just like you said: there were two on the island where the rich folk live, in some creepy Stone Henge park, and not just any two. They were the two highest ladies in the land. I did the beta dog dance because Number Two sniffed me out, got directions, went straight to the safe house and walked right in and started talking to people. I’ve been there every night since, to their amusement, or maybe their dismay, and I plan to keep going. They’re not so bad, actually. I get a lot less crap from them than I did when I first started coming into the light in Charlotte. (I know you don’t like my “Farm language”, but if I have to keep thinking of sophisticated ways to write, I can’t write anything! Sorry.) Even the Prissies are minding their manners. I wish you could see. There are a bunch of chicks here and they are pretty much all super-model sex pots, it’s ridiculous. I mean, I know we tend to run hot, but I think they drained the beauty genes out of the day stock, if you know what I mean. The male cows in this city are doomed, I tell you, doomed! But still, they mind their manners. Not that I care if they don’t. But of course it’s not all just been giggles and wiggles. I got on the Number Two’s bad side, and I don’t know if I can get off of it, especially considering that her bad side is about three-hundred square acres, and it may just be the only side she’s got. I totally walked right into it, too. We were just both giving this baby Prissy (also a sex pot, no surprise there) some good advice, helping her with the traditions and all, and Number Two (Hazel’s her name) called me a mynah bird, saying I was chirping on her shoulder, correcting her, which was a load of crap. I bet she doesn’t even know what a mynah bird is, just read about them. Anyway it took me way too long to figure out she was pulling rank, and I had to roll over and wag my tail. She invited us to some ritual next Thursday, and I thought about not going, but now I’m going to go just to piss her off. Maybe if I think really hard while I’m there, her stupid ritual won’t work. With my luck, I’ll be the sacrifice. I wonder if she’s as crazy as those Greek crones we got over there. Worse, I got caught sneaking on the Prince. I know exactly what face you’re making right now as you read this. I can see the lines coming out everywhere on your beautiful face like on a fallow field. But keep reading! It’s not my fault. Stupid Maxwell. He’s one of the Movement, this old guy who WON’T SHUT UP about being old, calling Prince Jo a baby or something, and all the Prissies want to have a party where they’ll dump on him til he drowns in it, and I was just trying to help him, trying to keep at least one of the Prissies from dumping on him til I got my hands on him and straightened him out a little. The Movement has to stick together, we have to watch each other’s backs, so I was watching his, and it meant doing some spying as a favor. Prissy versus Prissy. Typical scenario. I got shit for brains. Why did I think I could sneak on the Prince, and why didn’t I hide somewhere better? I’ve been out of practice. I know you hate the sneaking and the lurking, but you got my head all confused with being close to people and out in the open. So of course I’m standing practically next to them like an idiot and Jo looks right at me like, peekaboo, but then she doesn’t say anything, keeps right on talking to Hannah. Haven’t seen her since, so I got no clue whether she’s mad or just doesn’t give a shit. I think her boyfriend’s dead so she’s all distraught. Well, as distraught as Prissies get, which is not much. Then there’s this Hannah chick. I can’t figure her out. Her daddy kept her locked up, and she’s young, but she’s got blood like she’s old, and she won’t pick a club but she wants to hang around with the Movement, and Jo says she can pick whatever job she wants, Harpy, Keeper, whatever, and she’s asking Jo to some jazz club like it’s a date or something, and at the same time she wants me to be her date to a party. It’s like some Prissy math I can’t account for. I have to say, I’m glad I didn’t need to mess up her face. I didn’t really want to. Not that I wouldn’t have. (I know you hate thug business, too.) I just got way off-track, sorry. I was talking about Maxwell. So, this guy is so stupid, the Prince asked me to kick his ass. At the time, I didn’t really want to, since he’s one of us, but now that he got me in trouble, I want to mess up his hair and break his old man cane over his old man nose. Luckily for him, I have this plan about how to kick his ass without really kicking his ass. Unluckily for him, it involves pretty much kicking his ass. Warrel says if Maxwell doesn’t like the plan, I should call him and he’ll take care of it. Warrel’s the most senior Carthy here. He’s great. You’d call him uncouth or crass probably, but I think he’s fine. He is a bit of a slut, though, even if he won’t admit it. (I know, I know, that word. He has a sense of humor, though, not like HER). Anyhow, I have to run. I have to put on my Rich Society Girl disguise and go talk to some people to pay Hazel back for something she let me borrow. If you have time, write back. Tell how you’re doing. How is your Company? Put on any plays recently? How’s Gertrude and Muck Meggy? Still bearhugging and face-licking poor Shadows who come too far down? If it’s okay with you, could we have a lesson one of these nights? Your student, Farm Girl |
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